Through Her Eyes

by Jennifer Archer

  A few minutes later, with my grandfather settled in his room, I tell him good night and close his door. My thoughts return to Alison, and I climb up to the turret and gather all the photos I’ve taken of her. There are more in my backpack, and when I go down again to my bedroom, I take those out, too. One by one, I tear them up and toss them into the wastebasket, saving only the one of her at cheerleading practice. The one where she looks like she’s watching for someone, hoping, expectant, her perfect mask off for once. I wonder if it was her boyfriend she was waiting to see, but it doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business. And I don’t need proof anymore that she’s not as perfect as everyone thinks. I’m sure she knows that; I don’t need to remind her. I don’t need to remind myself anymore, either. But for some reason, I can’t bring myself to destroy this particular picture. I really like that image of her.

  I return the picture to my backpack, then stare blankly at the study sheet for Monday’s economics test. Soon the television quiets downstairs, and I hear Mom make her way to her room. I wait an hour, then sneak into her office to find her camera. Then I return to my room and dress in jeans and a T-shirt, sneakers, and a black zippered hoodie. Tonight, instead of my 35 millimeter, I’ll use Mom’s digital, since the flash isn’t as bright. It’s less likely to startle whoever or whatever is sneaking around outside the house. Plus, I won’t have to spend any time developing photos in the darkroom. I’ll be able to see the digital images in seconds.

  I slip downstairs to the kitchen and out the door. At the cellar, I use the combination Mom told me to open the lock, then I lay the padlock on the ground to make it look as if someone forgot to put it back on. If the prowler shows up, I’ll wait until he or she or it goes down, then I’ll return. They won’t get away without coming past me. Of course, if it’s Henry, I suppose he could transform into the nightingale and fly out of my reach.

  Making my way to the mulberry tree, I climb up. The moon is bright tonight. From high up in the branches, I have a great view of the backyard, the barn, and the cellar. Settling back on a sturdy limb, I pull Mom’s camera from my sweatshirt pocket and wait.

  The wind gusts, making the tree sway. Hanging on, I try to gauge the passage of time. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. The knobby tree limb jabs my butt. Lowering the camera to my lap, I try to concentrate on something safe to distract my mind—conjugating Spanish verbs, working math problems—but nothing works.

  A stain of darkness, deeper than before, spreads over the cellar door. I look up and watch a train of clouds chug slowly across the moon. My eyelids feel heavy, my consciousness drifts, and a memory floats through my mind. Summer in San Francisco when Papa Dan was still himself…the two of us setting our alarms for dawn…climbing onto the roof…a glow on the horizon…colors blending…pink and purple…gold…

  A creaking noise jerks my mind back to the present. I sit upright and grab the tree limb tighter with one hand and Mom’s camera with the other. Below, I see someone lifting the cellar door, their back to me. My heart is frantic as I raise the camera, aim, zoom in. I can’t tell who it is. Click. Click. Click.

  The prowler turns on a light, aims it into the cellar, starts down the steps, and disappears. The door closes.

  Leaning back against the tree trunk, I gulp in air to steady my nerves. Pushing a button on the camera, I bring the first photo into view on the LCD screen. The image is blurred, so I click to the next one, my heart thumping hard and steady. This one is clear but small. I use the zoom to enlarge it, see someone in jeans, an orange jacket with writing on back that I can’t make out. Definitely not a ghost.

  Shrinking the image again, I click to the next one and enlarge it as much as I can. Squinting, I lean closer and stare at the LCD screen, tensing when I recognize the number 10 beneath a name that I still can’t read. It doesn’t matter; I don’t need a name. I know which Cedar Canyon High football player wears the number 10.

  Tate.

  19

  Anger, betrayal, and humiliation build to a crescendo inside me. Dropping the camera into the pocket of my hoodie, I scramble down the tree. Tate has been hanging around me because he wants something. Something he thinks is in the cellar. Henry’s things? The journal, crystal, and pocket watch are all that were down there when we moved in.

  Did Henry use the crystal and his journal to communicate with Tate, too? That would explain why Tate was so angry and rude to me after I moved here. Mom and I padlocked the cellar door. He couldn’t get to Henry’s things anymore. But why didn’t he just tell me he’d left them down there? That they were his? Why did he have to use me? Pretend he liked me? Sneak around?

  My feet hit the ground, and I take off across the yard. What would I have done if Tate had told me the treasures were his and he wanted to get them out of the cellar? I would’ve known he was lying. I wouldn’t have handed them over, no questions asked. I already felt a connection to Henry. His poems speak to me…were meant for me. Not Tate or anyone else. Whatever Henry’s message is, I’m the only one who might be able to get it through to Papa Dan. But if Tate had been honest with me, maybe I would’ve confided in him about Henry and we could’ve figured this all out together.

  When I reach the cellar, I see a large hammer lying on the ground beside it. Bending over, I grab the door handle and tug.

  “Who’s there?” Tate yells up at me, and a bright light shines in my face. The aromas of mildew and earth surround me. A pause, then, “Tansy?” The light beam shifts away from my face. “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  White spots dot my vision—the result of the bright light in my eyes. Squinting, I ask, “What am I doing here? What are you doing? You’re the trespasser, not me.” I start down the steps, not even trying to hide my anger.

  “You unlocked the door, didn’t you?” he says. “You were expecting me. How did you know I’d come tonight?”

  “I’m not as stupid as you think I am, and you’re not as sneaky as you think you are.” Midway down, I stop. The fact that he had an ulterior motive for spending time with me is all I can think about, and my emotions lodge in my throat. I have to choke out my next words. “What do you want, Tate?”

  “I don’t want anything, and I don’t think you’re stupid.”

  “That’s why you started being nice to me, isn’t it? You thought if you weren’t able to break in here, you could convince me to let you in.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “See? You do think I’m stupid. Well, you’re too late. I found the box my first day here. It was under the last stair, exactly where you left it.” The steps creak as I take another one down. “It’s still there, but I took the journal and the watch into the house. The crystal, too.” My vision finally adjusts to the muted glow of the light, so I can see his face. His eyes don’t lie; I’m right. “That’s what I thought,” I say. “You wanted the things in the box, and you were mad because we padlocked the cellar door.”

  Tate’s gaze shifts away.

  “Why do you want them?” When he doesn’t answer, I say, “You could’ve just asked me for them.”

  Crickets chirp outside. The rustling leaves on the mulberry tree seem to say, Hush…listen…be patient.

  Tate stares at me a long time, then says, “Before you moved in, I hung out here a lot. The box…I do want it back. But that’s not why I’ve been nice to you.”

  “You hung out here? Why?”

  His hesitation hangs between us like a wire stretched tight. “Never mind. You can keep the box and the stuff in it. I don’t care anymore.” He starts up the stairs, but before he reaches the step where I stand, the door above us drops with a bang and a cloud of debris swirls down. We both start coughing as a rattle sounds overhead, and Tate rushes up the remaining steps. Slamming his palms against the door, he shouts, “It’s locked!”

  “Are you sure?” I hurry to help him.

  Tate goes still and asks, “Hear that?”

  Whistling. The quiet tune moves away from the cellar door. “Papa Dan!” I yell
, and bang the door with my fists.

  “Your grandfather?”

  “I guess I forgot to lock his bedroom door. Sometimes he wakes up and wanders around.”

  The whistling drifts farther away. We both bang and yell and rattle the door. “If we can hear him, he has to hear us,” Tate says.

  “He might not be wearing his hearing aids. He’s basically deaf without them.” I don’t mention that even if my grandfather hears us, it doesn’t mean he’d know what to do.

  “Great.” Tate lowers his fists at the same time I do. “Let’s keep trying. Sooner or later, your mom’s bound to hear us.”

  “It’s the middle of the night! She might not hear us for hours. Did you bring your cell phone?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s at home charging.”

  I move down to the center step and sit. Tate bangs on the door a couple more times before giving up. Then he sits two steps above me. I notice for the first time that the light he’s carrying is shaped like a lantern instead of a flashlight. He sets it beside him. The beam seems weaker than before. “I’m not sure how long this light’s gonna last,” he says. “It’s a solar lantern; I haven’t charged it in a while.” Our eyes meet, and a shiver ripples through me. I look down at my shoes. We’re stuck here until Mom discovers I’m not in my room. If I weren’t so upset, this might be funny. Or even exciting. I’m trapped with Tate Hudson and his moody blue eyes in a musty, dark cellar worthy of an appearance in a Millicent Moon novel.

  Minutes pass that seem like hours. We don’t talk. We don’t look at each other. Words I want to say but can’t crowd my mind, making my head hurt. Then the light dies, and blackness drops down on us like a lid on a box. I hear Tate’s breathing, hear the thump of my heartbeat.

  “You never said why you used to hang out here,” I say, just to break the silence. “You have a thing for breaking and entering or what?”

  “Funny,” he says, mimicking my cynical tone. “I bought the lantern so I could read and do homework.” He pauses, then continues, “And I came here to get away from my dad. I always thought it was bad having him on my back about football, but him not talking to me is worse.”

  I don’t know if Tate’s trying to play on my sympathies or if he’s just changing the subject to postpone having to explain what he’s doing in my cellar. But, either way, it’s working. I flash back to that night at the Watermelon Run and the insensitive things his dad said to him. “He doesn’t talk to you?” I ask cautiously.

  “He doesn’t talk period. Not much. Not since Mom left.”

  I tug the hood over my head. “If you treat him like you treat me, then I don’t really blame him.”

  “I already apologized for the way I acted when you first came to town.”

  “Sure, you did. So if your attempts to break in here failed, you could ask me to show you the haunted Peterson cellar.”

  “That’s not true. I apologized because I was sorry. And because I like you.”

  I want to believe him, but I’m afraid to let down my guard. Since arguing with him isn’t getting me anywhere, I change the subject. “I heard you quit the team.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet your dad’s not happy about that.” He makes a huffing sound, and I ask, “What about your mom? Is she upset about it, too?”

  “I haven’t told her. But she’ll be fine with it. Mom knows playing football isn’t what I want to do.” Tate’s quiet for a long time, then he says, “It’s probably stupid, but I want to focus on my writing. There’s a student contest I want to enter. If I win, I’ll get some college scholarship money. My mom encouraged me, but Dad thinks it’s a waste of time. He says there’s no future in it for me.”

  “Well, you can tell him my mom makes her living as a writer.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s why we moved here, to answer your question.”

  “My question?”

  “The other day at the bridge? You asked why we moved here.”

  “Oh, yeah. And you got mad at me again.”

  “Me? You’re the one who can’t make up his mind—” I sigh. “Forget it.”

  After a long, tense silence, Tate asks, “So what does your mom’s writing have to do with Cedar Canyon?”

  “She thinks she has to live where her book is set. The one she’s working on now takes place in a town like this.”

  “No offense, but that’s weird,” he says with a laugh.

  “I know. If she stays in one place too long, she turns into a walking nerve ending. There’s more to it than her books, but I won’t go into how messed up my family is.”

  “Whose isn’t?”

  The wind buzzes through the cracks in the cellar door. “If you want me to ask her to give you some writing advice, I will,” I tell Tate.

  “That’s not why I’ve been nice to you, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I never even thought about getting her advice until you said it just now.”

  I’m not sure I believe him, but I decide to give Tate the benefit of the doubt.

  “Man, it’s chilly in here,” he mutters.

  “I know. I’ve never lived anywhere else where it can be so warm during the day and then so cool at night. Until I moved here, I thought Texas was always hot.”

  “Yeah, well, the Panhandle’s not like the rest of the state.” His feet tap out a stuttered beat on the step below. “You mind if I come down there?”

  “I don’t care.” The stair above me creaks, and I scoot over. Tate eases in beside me and, instantly, I’m warmer.

  The silence between us stretches until Tate says, “Before you moved in, sometimes when I came out here I’d break into the house and look around.”

  “So it was you the Quattlebaums saw?”

  “They saw me?”

  “Sheriff Dilworth told us they’d reported spotting a prowler over here. He said there’d been a break-in.”

  “I didn’t take anything from the house,” Tate says defensively. “I was only looking around.”

  “I guess I ruined all that. You coming here, I mean.”

  He shifts beside me. “It’s no big deal.”

  “So when did you find the box?”

  “I found the crystal first. It was buried in the creek bed beneath the bridge. I know it sounds stupid, but I felt like it led me to the cellar. That’s when I found the box with the pocket watch and the journal inside. It freaked me out because the watch was stopped at 12:22. Supposedly Henry killed himself sometime after midnight.”

  12:22. What would Tate say if I told him I keep resetting the watch, but whenever I open it again, it’s always stopped at that time?

  “I guess you read his poems?” I ask.

  After a long silence, Tate says, “Yeah, I read them.”

  “They’re beautiful. He seems so…I don’t know. Troubled, I guess.” When he doesn’t respond, I say, “If it’s okay, I’d like to keep Henry’s journal. And the crystal…it’s the reason I wanted the necklace chain. So I could wear it.” I reach up to where the pendant rests beneath my jacket. “But if you want it back, I understand. The watch, too.”

  “You can keep everything.”

  “Really? You sure went to a lot of trouble to try and get to that box before I did.”

  “I just couldn’t quit thinking about Henry Peterson killing himself. And his stuff…it was like—” Tate exhales a noisy breath.

  “What?” Say it, I think. Tell me I’m not the only one who feels Henry’s pull.

  “Nothing.” Tate laughs a little. “I don’t know. It’s just a stupid ghost legend.”

  I dig my fingertips into my arms. I want to tell someone besides Bethyl Ann what’s been going on—to tell him. “I’m not so sure,” I say slowly. “That it’s stupid, I mean.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The wind seems to claw at the door above us. “Henry Peterson contacted me,” I blurt out before I can
change my mind.

  “You’re saying he’s been in touch with you?” Tate asks, disbelief in his voice.

  I take a deep breath and tell him everything, starting with the night I woke up at 12:22, when I heard a voice in Papa Dan’s room, and ending with the last time I stepped through the shimmering crystal beam and into Isabel’s memories. “Henry wants me to meet him at the cliff at midnight. He wants me to run away with him.”

  “You mean Bell,” Tate says with a hesitant tone. “He wants Bell to meet him, right?”

  “Don’t you understand? When I step through the crystal beam into a photo, I am Bell. And the next time I go, I have a feeling I won’t come back.”

  “You won’t come back here?”

  The confusion in Tate’s voice makes me think I was wrong about him sensing Henry’s presence, too. I’m afraid I made a mistake by telling him so much. “I know I sound crazy,” I tell him. “But what’s even crazier is that I feel like I don’t have a choice. I have to go. I need to do what Henry tells me to do. And, in a way, I want to.” Although I know Tate can’t see me in the dark, I turn my face away from him before murmuring, “I guess you’re probably thinking I’m crazy now, like everyone else does.”

  “Who said you’re crazy?”

  I think of Shanna and say, “Nobody important.”

  “Well, I don’t think that.” He tugs at the cuff of my sleeve, his fingers brushing my wrist and making me shiver. “You’re freaking me out, though,” he says softly.

  “I thought that since you found all Henry’s things like I did, maybe you’d sensed him, too,” I murmur. “I mean, you said that the crystal led you to the cellar and the box.”

  “I may have felt something, but nothing even close to what you’re telling me. It was just my imagination going wild because of all the stories about this place.”

  “So…what’s happening to me?” My voice falters.

  “Your imagination’s going wild, too. You just have a stronger one than I do. That’s what scares me, since I’m the one who wants to write fiction.” He laughs a little at his joke, but he sounds more nervous than amused. “Look, you’ve been through a lot. Moving…your granddad being sick…dealing with all the jerks at school. Anybody would want to escape.” He’s quiet for a few seconds, then asks, “Could you be dreaming? It sounds like a lot of the times this has happened have been at night when you’re about to go to sleep or early in the morning right after you wake up.”